Last week after putting my two young kids in the car my wife put her hand bag in the boot and closed the tail gate. After doing this the vehicle automatically locked itself with the kids in the car by themselves. Both key fobs were in the vehicle. No matter what she did the doors would not open. She immediately called jeep assist who sent out the police, and fire brigade immediately along with a breakdown specialist. Luckily it wasn't. A hot day and my wife hadn't yet opened the garage, otherwise their could have been some serious safety issues for my kids.

When we spoke to jeep after the breakdown guy had broken into the car, they informed us that jeep had advised dealers it was impossible for this to happen on this model due to all the fail safes built in.

Has anyone else heard of this issue, it could have killed my children had it been outside in the middle of summer, they are only toddlers, and don't cope with hi temperatures.

I read about this today in a pdf of the manual (page 23). The car can lock itself if it detects a key inside the car, but only after 3 warnings by chirping the horn. On the 3rd warning it will lock the key in, presumably to prevent theft. Did it give any warning at all?

That assumes though that one key is still outside.

Our Audi has 2 remotes supplied, but also has a separate service key to unlock doors the old way but it cant start the car. The idea is to keep it separate for events like this.

In an emergency though, with toddlers involved, I wouldnt hesitate in breaking glass to get in.

You should not have both keys in the car. If you plan to break the window, do not try the front ones as they are laminated.
My friends ML merc did the same thing, but they got the kid to open the door.

I can certainly lock mine from the tailgate simply by touching the passive button, the same as touching the buttons on the front doors. Obviously it detects the FOBIK in proximity to do this although I don't know how it differentiates between key in or out.
i also noticed when using a hose on the front doors that if the water stream hits the button the door will lock if i have the fob in my pocket.

I have a habit of putting my key in the cup holder and on several occasions have jumped out and tried to lock the car using the passive button on the drivers door and it doesn't lock. I Haven't tried it from other doors though. I think I better get use to leaving the keys in my pocket.

Turns out this would be deemed as a major safety failure, under the new AUstralian Consumer law that came into force last January. Jeep will need to give me a full refund as they still haven't been able to source the problem, let alone fix it. The have now had my GJC for a month, meanwhile I am paying it off and not able to use it.

Mine has done some funky things. Aside from the non starting problem, we also locked the baby in the car, while she was trying to get it started. She tried the 3 lock/unlock trick, but after doing it twice without getting the car started, it would not unlock.
She managed to get the boot open and after that the car unlocked when tried again.
We have now had the radio change from FM to iPod twice without touching anything. 1st time the car was sitting idling while I loaded the boot and the second time when I was driving. At no point did anythign touch the buttons on the wheel or radio.
I really hope this is not a sign of things to come, as the electrical gremlins are not getting better. We got the flash to fix the starting problem 10 days ago and it has not happened since, but then it is very intermittent.